


H.H. Hartley

by GoringWriting



Series: Singhwayweek [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 03:02:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11888571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoringWriting/pseuds/GoringWriting
Summary: Day 3 historical





	H.H. Hartley

“Hey Hartley, do you think that you can run to the drugstore and pick something up for Harrison?” Cisco asks and the young engineer nods his head eagerly because it’s Harrison Wells, the man who gave him a job when he was alone starving on the streets, he owes him his life. Hartley climbs down from where he’s been working on what is going to be the structure to rival the Eiffel tower, the crowning achievement of the Columbian Exposition, and begins walking West to 63rd street to the World’s Fair Hotel so that he can pick up the prescription from the drugstore there.  
The World’s Fair hotel never fails to inspire awe and even a little fear in Hartley’s heart. The building is huge, it’s almost like a castle. It takes up an entire city block and stretches three stories into the sky. It doesn’t really compare with the skyscrapers that recently began popping up into the sky but it’s still pretty big, and a feat of engineering brilliance. Hartley had watched the building come into existence. The man who built it had pretty much gone through all the construction crews in the city and then some because he kept firing them every other month.  
Hartley goes inside the hotel and up to the clerk and asks for Harrison’s order, the clerk nods and sets to work filling it and Hartley finds his curiosity getting the better of him, after all he’s always wanted to see the inside of the second and third story. He walks through the hall and quickly sneaks up the stairs and begins walking through the twisting and turning hallways, instantly losing his way. He hears someone coming through the hall and he hides himself in one of the vacant rooms and locks the door as he hears someone pass by the room.   
Once he hears the person pass by he goes to open the door, but when he goes to open the door it refuses to open. Hartley immediately starts banging on the door and shaking the knob trying to get out. He hears a hiss and suddenly the room is beginning to fill with some kind of gas.  
“Someone help me!” Hartley shrieks banging on the door frantically but either no one can hear him or there’s no one around to hear him and soon Hartley passes out and slumps to the floor.  
Hartley wakes up in a room with nothing inside of it, just darkness and no idea how long he’s been there, or where he is.  
“Hello? Please, someone let me out!” Hartley screams and begins banging on the walls and kicking anything he can but nothing helps and he collapses in the corner sobbing. There seems to be a steady stream of air flowing through the room so he doesn’t have to worry about suffocation, but he doubts his captor is going to give him food or water. So, maybe he has a couple days before he dies from dehydration, a fact he wishes he hadn’t learned from the nurse in charge of the Ferris Wheel construction team.  
“Please, anybody! I don’t want to die here,” Hartley sobs and curls up in a ball, and feels something poke into his side and feels around in the dark and feels something long and smooth and sort of clubbed on the end and he hopes to anyone listening that what he’s holding is not a bone, but he’s almost certain that it is a human leg bone. He shuts his eyes and then remembers the Swiss Army knife he’d stolen from someone and begins whittling the bone into something he can use to maybe break through the wall. He begins poking at the wall with all his strength.  
“Come on, you survived living on the streets for years, you can survive this,” Hartley mutters to himself and wedges the shaped end into the cement between the bricks and knocks some of the cement loose and he keeps going until he’s so tired his body gives out and he falls asleep against the wall and a short while later he wakes up and starts up his work again. He bangs and digs with all his strength not knowing how much longer he’ll have the strength to do anything that could help him escape.   
A short time later he manages to break through the little bit of cement and gets a small beam of light to come into the room. That small beam seems to spur him on and soon he’s managed to get the brick loose enough to move but he also doesn’t have the strength left to move it. He collapses against the wall by the small gap in the cement eyes barely able to keep his eyes open and his mouth is so dry that he’s not even making spit anymore.  
“Remember men search every floor and knock on every wall, if it sounds hollow then break the wall down!” Hartley hears someone says and Hartley picks his head up a little and calls out with the loudest voice he can muster, but it’s drowned out by the sounds of boots stomping and hands banging through the hall.  
“Please, help me,” Hartley rasps out as he sees breaks in the light, indicating that people are passing by the opening, but again he can’t be heard over the noise of the search.  
“Joe, I want you to take a team up to the third floor and check for people up there,” the voice says and the hall is suddenly quiet and Hartley’s heart sinks.  
“Please, someone help me,” he rasps out and he hears movement.  
“Hello? Where are you?” the voice asks and Hartley reaches for the bone and begins banging on it with all his strength and he catches a glimpse of someone’s face through the small space in the bricks.   
“Please get me out of here, I don’t want to die,” Hartley pleads and the man begins pulling on the bricks and Hartley leans all his weight on each brick and soon there’s enough space for Hartley to squeeze through. He begins squirming through the gap and suddenly there’s a hand in front of his face.  
“Grab my hand, I’ll pull you out,” the man says and Hartley grabs onto it and holds on for dear life. Slowly he manages to make it through the wall and out into the hallway and a glass of water is pressed to his lips and Hartley drinks it slowly.  
“Can you tell me your name?” the man says.  
“Hartley Rathaway,” Hartley rasps out and drinks another glass of water.  
“Hi Hartley. My name is David Singh. We’ll take you to the hospital in a few moments,” David says and Hartley’s eyes widen.  
“No! I Can’t afford the hospital,” Hartley says gripping David’s arms tightly.  
“Okay, okay. I’ll take you to my home and try and help you there,” David says as Hartley clutches at his arm wide eyed. David helps him through the streets and to his apartment. Hartley looks around cautiously as he slowly inches into the apartment. David can’t really fault the man. He’d be twitchy too if he’d been locked in a room behind a wall.   
David watches Hartley explore the apartment and sets to work making something for him to eat and drink while Hartley goes into the bathroom to wash his face. While Hartley does that David hands him some of his own clothes so Hartley can feel clean.  
He almost doesn’t hear the man behind him, but when he turns he’s shocked to find Hartley behind him leaning on the counter staring off into the distance.  
“Thank you for rescuing me,” Hartley murmurs looking slightly off to the side playing nervously with the hem of his sweater.   
“I’m a cop, it’s my job,” David says carefully making sure that younger man has plenty of personal space.  
“I…I…Want to thank you…but I don’t have any money.”  
“No thanks needed, just tell me what happened to I can make my report and catch the guy who took you,” David says leading the younger man over to the couch so he can eat and drink and Hartley slowly opens up and tells him everything that happened.  
“Do you think you were set up?” David asks cautiously.  
“By Wells? No, I can’t believe that,” Hartley says but then David shows him a picture of the owner of the hotel and his stomach sinks. He’d seen that man talking to Wells a few days ago and he tells David that.  
“Who is he?” Hartley asks.  
“H.H. Holmes, we’ve connected him to several murders in that hotel of his,” David says and realization dawns on Hartley’s face.  
“Murders? I was held hostage by a murderer?” Hartley says quietly and faints.  
Hartley wakes up slowly and hears David calling his name.  
“David? What happened?” Hartley asks.  
“You fainted,” David says leaning back in relief.   
“Sorry, how long was I out?” Hartley asks.  
“A day, I was going to take you to the hospital if you didn’t wake up soon. But I have good news, they caught the him,” David says and Hartley feels like a weight has been taken off his shoulders.   
“So, what now?” Hartley asks fearing that David will kick him to the curb.  
“You can stay here until you’re better and then you can go on with your life,” David says.  
“What life? My boss set me up as a toy for a murderer, my apartment has probably been emptied and rented, and I have no one,” Hartley says and David frowns softly.  
“You have me, if you want me that is,” David says quietly and then looks away.  
“Oh, I definitely want you,” Hartley says and then realizes what he said and blushes furiously.  
“Good, because I want you too,” David says and the two men hug tightly as the multi- murderer known as H.H. Holmes is hung and his coffin and grave are filled with cement.


End file.
